Was Andrew Carnegie a Murderer?
Andrew Carnegie the philantropist and Scottish American gave away millions of dollars each year (and still does through his charitable trusts) promoting education and world peace.
Although a respected giver there is evidence he was also involved in the murder of strikers in a bid to end a series of strikes in his factories and coal mines.
Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland into an active political family fighting for the vote to be given to the working class who would be able to use their new power to stand for election and make the world a far fairer environment.
However the only way to gain political power was to take it away from the rich and they were the people who controlled the factories upon which the Carnegie family were dependant for employment and their survival. Their reputation as “trouble-makers” (certainly in the eyes of factory owners they were) meant they were blacklisted everywhere.
At age 13 Andrew Carnegie saw these struggles of the poor against the rich and moved to Pittsburgh USA with his family to start a new life. Even after selling all they had they still needed to borrow money from fellow Chartists and neighbours to pay for their passage.
Andrew Carnegie took a job working as a telegraph operator before being promoted to personal secretary to his boss and stayed with him when he took a senior position in national government. The skill and knowledge he acquired along with very good investments enabled Carnegie to invest in a steel works which under his leadership grew until he sold it for 400 million of which he personally earned 350 million dollars.
Carnegie cut wages and pushed workers for longer hours along with investing in new technology to enable him to win enough contracts to buy up less efficient steel works. He continually ran into conflict after conflict with the new unions.
Andrew Carnegie appointed Frick as business manager of his steel works was also known as a hard nosed business man when it came to fighting unions and they often brought in Pinkerton’s Detective Agency to defend their position. Pinkerton’s over the years had become the people to turn to when you wanted gunmen to fight strikes and had acquired a reputation for being violent in the way they handled themselves. The agency had even bombed a union HQ in Chicago and had been involved in a number of killings of strike leaders.
Although Carnegie was back in Scotland at the time of the Homestead steel works strikes we have published a number of cables from Andrew Carnegie to Frick as his General Manager supporting and encouraging him to do whatever was necessary to win the fight. On this occasion 10 men died in a day long gun battle and when the union finally caved in Carnegie cut wages even lower, increased the number of hours and blacklisted 500 union men who would never work again.
Blacklisted from employment after being branded a troublemaker by rich factory owners rings bells with how Carnegies own family was punished so he obviously learnt some lessons, didn’t he? You can read the full story on http://scottishjerk.com/09/andrew-carnegie-murderer/ and vote in our poll at the same time.